Volcano

Well, just because you saved an older scenario in newer versions doesn't mean the duplicate IDs would go away. It sounds like they are originally older scenarios, and the duplicate IDs were broken at that time, and its no surprised that they would still exist. They have to be manually fixed there. Not saying that is what the issue is, but if it is, then it is expected behavior. These are would be fixed by either removing the troops and replacing them, or by renaming the parent unit (with the troops inside) to some other name, then back again to their original name, or by renaming the troop units. Also, it's important: There is something that I remember that is tricky about the duplicate ID test. IIRC, when you load the scenario in the Mission Editor, it doesn't automatically check the duplicate IDs except I think for the first party. You have to actually swap to the other sides in the drop down bar in that dialog and press the "Check for duplicate IDs" button. Otherwise, once the mission begins in EXE Phase, then I think it checks all sides automatically when you open the dialog (that might be what you are observing here, or not). (However, if this is not what you are seeing, then I will need to take a look at the scenario.)

AARs will not help, really. The fact is: if there is something wrong with the logic, then it would be apparent in a simple stripped down scenario. I was saying to reproduce the situation shown in a series of simple routes and see what happens. If it works there, then it should work elsewhere. If it doesn't work with 500+ routes and waypoints, then it implies that its a problem with the relationship between the routes and waypoints in the area. Otherwise what is expected here, that we go in with a hammer and bang on the code based on assumptions? So, I am simply stating what would be needed to give it a serious investigation, that is all.

23 SEP 2022: Future Wars-Oncilla-4362 Reminder: Please try to get the map before game time if you don't have it already, by using the Map Transfer Manager and querying the following UID: 7e0e7e2e-27c9-4aad-9a85-8974d8496cd5 SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS: Draft? Yes. Random CO selection? Yes. Minimum # players: 8 NOTES: Remember to play within the TGIF House Rules and SB.com Community Rules.

I might at some point -- It's not like I don't want to do it again (although I always was unsure of the interest though), it's more about it being a huge ordeal to coordinate between all the teams involved and I just haven't had the time. Certainly it is far easier to run a campaign that requires very little coordination. But who knows, maybe I'll do it again in the coming years, given how long ago it was.

To panic and bail out of the tank. 😛 In all seriousness though, the loader is usually the most junior member of the crew, usually trained in very basic operation of the tank (pull this trigger to fire the gun for example). Certainly a CMOH winning loader could hop between the loader position and load a round, then back to the gunner position and *maybe* fire the gun and possibly hit something, but the problem with that behavior in SB is that every loader would be Audie Murphy, with the user operating the gun just as effective as being without the gunner/commander (just waiting a long time to load), which probably isn't quire realistic as a norm.

Another thing you can try is uploading to YouTube, with an unlisted link, or to DropBox, or OneDrive, GoogleDrive etc. Any of those would work.

Sorry but we cannot do much with that vehicle - it is very old. If you recall, the truck was made over 10 years ago and the only update it ever got was better looking wheels. There are no meshes that we can remove (it doesn't even have doors that open), so the best we can do is flatten the tires (where is that Pawn Stars meme when you need it). We cannot remove the tarp either, because there is nothing physically in the back. Also, none of this is different than it ever was before. The important question is: does the vehicle die or become severely disabled on impact of large HE and HEAT? If it does, then that is good, if not then provide a test scenario here so I can address it (that would be bad of course). That said, we are being very conservative when it comes to removing meshes (aka. "destroyed meshes"), and this is because we never want a case that a non-superficial mesh is removed (like say the entire rear cargo area of the Ural) but the truck is somehow still alive. But what it really comes down to here is age of the model. If the model is very old, then usually any mesh that is removed will cause invisible see-through polygons underneath, or other ugliness, or it won't have specifically separate meshes at all, which prevents things from being removed. As for fire, well, this again is no different than it ever was before. It has a diesel engine so a general rule is that we don't have fire damage because, broadly speaking, the diesel engine is supposed to be quite safe from fire in the sense that we don't want it as a probability that kill the vehicle from the fuel tank being hit. Usually a fire on such vehicles would happen after the vehicle is dead, but not be something that would be so volatile that it would kill the vehicle in itself first, if that makes any sense. Now we want to see fire, because there are visual effects associated with it in 4.3+, so what we will likely need is some kind of post-kill fire probably (of say, a fire that starts following the vehicle's death). But this all really points back to old behavior, or old models, and yes, I am 100% sure there are other old vehicles that behaves similarly -- let's just say I am intimately familiar with them all. 😐

The only way this could be tested would be if you provide a stripped down test scenario here so we can look at the logic. That is, have a unit with just the route properties in question present, where the unit can be observed. There are always cases where the route type and overall situation may affect how a unit behaves, so if enemy is present or other units are getting in the way (traffic jam) them try to include those as well. Despite all that, I'd say that the logic itself has NOT changed. The addition of the colored tactics (black, yellow or flashing etc) is just a visualization of what was already done. However, there could be a bug affected things with pathfinding, or some other such issue. A test scenario would help figure that out.

Correct about the interior, I was referring to the 3D crewman on the exterior model, used for damage determination (which is only visible in the AAR impacts), which I guess no one was referring to. In that case, the exterior of the 2A4 would have to be updated (if ever) before a gunner would appear in those AAR impacts, but until that happens the gunner can still get damaged by the old invisible "crew boxes". But I see what the point is now -- the 2A4's interior gunner is in the seat and the 2A6MA2 is not. That should be an easy fix... 👍 EDIT: Actually it might not be, for technical reasons, but we will try.

In the mean time I added a little more text. The key to controlling the drone is that you must be in the F2 or F3 view (see the bold text now in the Standard Controls section. So basically, what you do is you can go into the F2 or F3 view THEN you are able to fly the drone manually with ASDW and QZ buttons. Or, while in F3, you can go to the map view and plot a route from the drone, then go back into F3 view and press the "NAV" button on the far right (which is described in the Mission Control section.

When writing documentation in the SBwiki, a large part of it is assumed as being obvious - but often the assumption is wrong. So what exactly are you doing in the Libelle? Like, what is the process you are trying? I will add more to the drone info page once I can figure out what you are doing.

Regarding the Leopard 2A4 -- it will not get a 3D gunner until (if ever) it is updated. That is just the way it has to be, and there are other vehicles like that too. The older they are, the less likely they have a 3D crew, but they still have the invisible 3D crew "box" for damages, of course. The 2A7's gunner can be lowered in the interior of course. This is purely visual. Problem there being that the exterior and interior do not always 100% line up, so if the interior doesn't have its own offsets, then it will just appear in 3D space where the exterior gunner is (which is accurate, but often has to be nudged around to put the butt in the chair, but that isn't always remembered during development). 😑

FYI for all: So we played Future Wars Tenrec, and will likely play the other one (Oncilla) next week. But for that, be sure you check to see if you have the map. You can download it with the Map Transfer Manager by querying this UID: 7e0e7e2e-27c9-4aad-9a85-8974d8496cd5

Great, always welcome. You just have to prioritize what is important (TGIF of course, j/k). 😉

Not necessarily, but really the "duplicate ID" situation has probably been oversimplified in the release notes. If the scenario is a save in progress, then duplicate IDs will exist - mainly when infantry are killed and revived by medic. This is not necessarily a bad thing, or at least we have to understand that duplicate ID's are not necessarily destructive in those particular situations. The original duplicate ID problem is when a *newly crated scenario* has them, which would be very bad as it caused infantry and vehicles to share IDs, but I think should be impossible now (or near impossible). The main thing for the duplicate ID dialog is to catch this in older scenarios where newly created ones could have those duplicate IDs. So, short answer - if the duplicate ID is a result of infantry being duplicates of itself from being revived, then this should be OK.

Regarding the M1A2, the SHIFT+N to zoom out of thermal sight is do-able, as well as the 5000m extension of M829A3 engagement range. It's a known issue that we just haven't got around to, but the former issue might be more do-able now that the T-72B3 behaves that way (and the latter might be very easy to do, actually, but an investigation is required to what approach to take). The stuff about 'fixing all the other M1A2 bugs', well, not likely to happen given that we have over 3000+ known bugs and enhancements. From time to time something might be do-able, but every single vehicle has "bugs" in regards to the cut off of where we choose to stop simulating. The MRS update missing from the M1A1 for example -- is that a bug or an enhancement? Non functional driver's position (no gauges) or non-functional switches in other positions? Bug or enhancement? Challenger 2's non-functional HESH ballistic computer behavior? Bug or enhancement? Who knows what will happen going forward, but the point is (as mentioned before) it's not like things are being intentionally overlooked. Regarding the AI shooting the ground, yes of course -- the best thing to do here is to provide a test scenario in the Support Forum that reproduces the situation (that isn't a full blown scenario) and we can very easily do something about it. It's not one thing that causes it, its a multitude of conditions that occur (which are usually vehicle specific), so its not like we can just change one thing to fix it in every case. A particular case has to be observed, then dissected. The "AI" consists of a ton of conditions and variables colliding with each other chaotically and then "something happens" (that is basically the AI in any game, in summary). 😳 But at least internally when this is observed, we are usually able to make a new empty scenario, go to the same spot on the map, and place the same firing vehicle and same target vehicle in the same positions (some screwing around with it required) to reproduce the situation and have addressed them as we become aware of them. Regarding the AI being able to spot things by seeing a singular pixel through the trees, or whatever, again if a test scenario can be provided then we can evaluate it. This is one of those areas that AI is particularly good at. We don't want them completely brain dead at spotting heat signatures or back illuminated (skyline) silhouettes through woods for example, but we also don't want them seeing something the user would never ever see. This is nearly impossible to balance.

16 SEP 2022: Future Wars-Oncilla-4362 or Future Wars-Tenrec-4355 SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS: Draft? Yes. Random CO selection? Yes. Minimum # players: 8 NOTES: Remember to play within the TGIF House Rules and SB.com Community Rules.

Just FYI: I will delay the Firefight 79 campaign start until the first or second TGIF in OCT (3 or 4 weeks from now), since I remembered that a few participants will be away over the next few weeks. No problem.

Thanks, glad you like it. I was just coming back now to say the page is essentially "done" (as in, ready to be used, at least as a basic info page that can be elaborated on later). https://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/index.php?title=Category:Drones

Here is a unified drone's page, in its infancy. This will hopefully be the place that you will get information about how to use them, once I can get some assistance with putting the page together - this is just a starting point (I don't have as much time as I used to to work in the SBwiki and will need help there). 😩 https://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/index.php?title=Drones

The plan is to have a consolidated SBwiki page, but I guess it hasn't happened yet....

Also, if an infantry units starts on top of a trench then you may have issues with them getting into it (similar to if you place a vehicle right on top of a vehicle emplacement at start). Best thing to do in both cases is place the unit slightly behind it at start, with a defend tactic.

Good news (hopefully): So we dug down further into the comments with the T-72B3 possibly being more sensitive to joystick/mouse input while looking at the thermal sight view and... It seems that there may have been something going on which caused some additional oddities that might have contributed to this behavior. At least on the surface this should not be true, but a fixes to the T-72B3 FCS seems like it may have also taken care of this as well. Kudos to those who spotted it (Badger and others). Take a look at it in the patch and see if things have improved. 👍

I like this idea. I have always said -- playing SB as a one-off scenario is one thing (which can be fun enough, sure) but where it really shines is as a means to run campaigns that you just can't pull off in most games, where your imagination (as game master) is usually the limit, and that is the main reason behind the evolution of the report file feature to help manage resources. Always good to see someone think outside of the box, and this is hybrid campaign seems like a great idea. I would like to participate at some point, next time, if I can be let out of the cave.... 🦇 (You might also want to consider putting it into the SB Wiki too - I have several campaigns I wrote up in there for historical purposes, and for inspiration for others to take ideas from).

9 SEP 2022: Civil War Mykonos-4357 SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS: Draft? Yes. Random CO selection? Yes. Minimum # players: 10-12 NOTES: Remember to play within the TGIF House Rules and SB.com Community Rules.